Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements.
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.
I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
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All those people that think Washington advocated isolationism do not understand Washington. He understood we needed to assert ourselves first before we started engaging in the world, but we could not abandon the committments we have already made.
The Quasi War has taken on a significant role in modern debates over the distribution of war powers between the Executive and Legislative branches. Supporters of a broad executive war power have sometimes appealed to the Quasi War with France, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, as an example of unilateral warmaking on the part of the president.
I kinda like it, but then what would you expect from a guy with wooden teeth wo owned slaves?
If all political speeches could be that shot.
Along with their constant need to insist that the Constitution no longer applies in modern times, Wilsonian Progressives like to insist that Washington’s letter meant the opposite of what it says. The typical line is that he only said these things because we were not yet an imperial military power. This claim might have some merit if Washington had not so clearly outlined the reasons against permanent military alliances:
“So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.”–George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
It seem preposterous to suppose that Washington would have felt that these terrible consequences would suddenly become a benefit upon the United States becoming a military might. I’ll agree with the Wilsonians that one must consider the context when looking at historical quotations. That’s why it’s important to consider how Washington’s words hold up in the context of today’s world. I believe that we can plainly see the wisdom of his warnings if we look at our own modern military alliances and see how they drag us into conflicts ” where no real common interest exists”. These military arrangements always gives “ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens” a pretext to claim we are defending American interests, but it is almost never the case.
The pejorative term “isolationism” is always used to disparage any who oppose military adventurism and nation building. Washington’s call for “Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations” hardly sounds like isolation. He said that, “our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing”. He simply advocated relations based on commerce, instead of the sword. Ask yourself, who isolates himself more from his neighbors; the man who invites everyone over for a picnic, or the man who forms a street gang with some neighbors in order to terrorize and control the others? Washington called for a foreign policy based on the free market, instead of government central planning. One cannot support central planning abroad without succumbing to it at home.
“I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.” Unfortunately, politicians never listened.
Scott, hope someone 200 years from now finds flaws in your life, for what was expressed could only come from someone who hasnt understood historys transtion
*sigh* I think the maxim “Better to be thought a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt” would fit some posters here.
Dan, that would require reading AND thinking…something I don’t think he’s capable of at the same time
Okay people, easy on the insults. You know the rules.
However, Scott, some of what they say it true. You need to do a better job with history. Washington knew his very well. The fact you spouted about Washington’s dentures? They were not made of wood. They were made from ivory and human teeth. My fifth grade students know that. And as for slavery, we have covered that ad nauseum. You do know that he freed everyone of them don’t you? And that for many years he ran Mount Vernon for their maintenance, not his and Martha’s?